Wii Play

I picked the Wii Play title up from Walmart this morning, and gave it a whirl with the 4yr old this evening. The game is a package of 9 mini games on one disc, plus one extra Wiimote controller, for $50. This means you’re essentially getting a game for $10, and given the simplistic nature of the games on the disc I think it’s a pretty good value (though Ars Technica was not impressed; perhaps the author doesn’t have kids?).

IN any case, Nintendo knows what it’s doing. Shigeru Miyamoto, the inventor of Mario and Donkey Kong, lends some insight into the target audience. In a nutshell – moms:

AR: Nintendo has always said that Wii is supposed to be for everybody but there is this one really large, really tough nut in the community that no one seems to be able to crack and that’s women. Why are we so hard to please?

SM: It is actually fun to think about that. My wife does not play any kind of games. I have tried to make her interested with various games like Tetris, but she has never showed interest, until recently. But we’re beginning to tear down the walls, starting with the Nintendo DS games. It was fun to watch. Although we have not gathered figures about this, I think games such as Wii Sports can interest women. Hopefully women will begin to enjoy games more. I think our target will be mothers. In a common family with a mother, father and children, I think mothers take the initiative in family entertainment and I think they would respond well to the Wii. And we might go as far as saying that we designed the Wii to that effect — as something that mothers would want to buy.